Foreign nationals, employers and immigration practitioners do not need any reminders that the last four years have been a regulatory and administrative nightmare for anyone seeking to secure an immigration benefit. From the horrors of family separations to historical processing delays and from unlawful interpretations of laws and regulations to a significant increase in Requests for Evidence, rejections of properly filed petitions, and denials of lawfully filed applications and petitions, foreign nationals and their families, employers, communities and advocates have suffered. The Trump Administration’s policies wreaked havoc on the U.S. Citizenship andImmigration Services (USCIS) and the Department of State (DOS), which, when paired with the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, have resulted in unprecedented hardships for many stakeholders in the U.S. immigration system.
When President Biden, whose campaign promised to reform our immigration system to one that was fair and compassionate, took office, we were all very excited. However, as we noted after President Biden’s first 100 days in office, change was slow and many of the changes made to that point were cosmetic or otherwise low hanging fruit that did not create meaningful reform.We had yet to see any significant policy changes and USCIS continued to operate much like it had under the Trump Administration — clearly approvable cases were being denied, the agency was interpreting and applying immigration laws and regulations in an arbitrary and capricious manner, and processing delays continued to grow to all time historic levels. Read more:
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Lin R. Walker.
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